Episode 99 -- Fetal Personhood

Fetal personhood is one of those doctrines that have moved from the fringes of the conservative legal movement (and even from the fringes of right wing theology) to the center. While it is not clear how much support there is at the US Supreme Court for the idea that fetuses are people and have rights under the 14th Amendment, this once-obscure doctrine has been filtering into abortion and pregnancy criminalization since the Dobbs decision. In this episode, Moira walks Adrian through the strange history of this doctrine, and through its awful consequences for pregnant people or those who can become pregnant. (Content Warning: discussions of pregnancy loss and sexual violence)

Here is a list of the books we relied on in researching this episode -- all of these are very much worth your time:

Mary Ziegler, Persohood: The New Civil War Over Reproduction (2025)

Jennifer Holland, Tiny You: A Western History of the Anti-Abortion Movement (2020) (you can also watch a 2021 conversation between Adrian, Jennifer Holland and Melissa Murray here)

Leslie J. Reagan, When Abortion was a Crime (new edition 2022)

Michelle Goodwin, Policing the Womb (2022)

Lauren Berlant, The Queen of America Goes to Washington City (1997)

Pregnancy Justice, Pregnancy as a Crime: A Preliminary Report on the First Year After Dobbs